Stop bullying at all levels

 I couldn’t be there in person, but please know that I was there in spirit on April 11 when a crowd gathered in front of the Bryan ISD Administration building to protest bullying in the school district.

It isn’t just the Bryan ISD; it’s any school district in the country. Bullying is a serious problem that has profound and long-lasting consequences. I know that from personal experience. I was relentlessly bullied in elementary school and junior high. It tapered off in high school, but continued into my early adult life.

It made me a coward. I developed very low self-esteem. I had no self-confidence, although I learned to fake it as I got older. When I reached my 30s, I came to understand bullying for what it is – a person of weak character trying to make themselves appear strong by putting down someone who is physically or emotionally smaller or more vulnerable.

I feared going to school. I knew it meant getting picked on by bullies. Worse, the teachers and staff did nothing about it. On those very rare occasions when I fought back, guess who got in trouble? To the teachers I was just a whiney little brat and a tattletale.

Over the years I have written quite a bit about anti-bullying programs in schools. I’ve also written about the unfortunate consequences of bullying. The situation has only gotten worse in the age of social media. Cyberbullying is horrifying and its digital imprint never goes away. It’s a leading cause of teenage suicide. It’s been blamed for some of the mass shootings in schools across the country.

I have never felt that school districts anywhere did enough to prevent bullying or punish bullies. There is little solace for the victims. Too often we see people in the periphery siding the with bully and getting a rise out of the reaction of the victim. It’s kind of a gang mentality. Good illustrations of that are Biff’s buddies in the “Back to the Future” movies or Dr. Evil’s henchmen in “Austin Powers.”

I looked up Bryan ISD’s policy on bullying in its handbook, and it has a lot of information about identifying bullying, bullying prevention, and ways to report bullying. What is seriously lacking is information about disciplining the bully. It offers a vague “administration will take appropriate disciplinary action.”

I’d like to know more about what those actions are. The policy states that some cases could involve law enforcement intervention or the relocation of the bully to another school in the district. Counseling services are available to both victim and bully. Honestly, I don’t see anything there that is much of a deterrent to a bully.

Bullying is widespread. It’s not contained to the schoolyard. It shows up in the corporate world, athletics, and more. Right now, it is pervasive in politics.

President Donald Trump is and always has been a bully. Unfortunately, he is modeling this behavior unchecked and creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that is being emulated by those who admire him. How can we expect anyone to take bullying seriously when it is openly and unabashedly practiced by the so-called leader of the free world?

One does not have to look hard to see how he has gone after anyone he perceives to be an enemy. He has sought revenge against prosecutors and the court in his felony hush money trial. He routinely makes threats against political opponents. He has fired thousands of government employees and pushed to close entire agencies without due process. He made it clear during his election campaign that he was going to get revenge against those who prosecuted him or opposed him in any way.

He and Vice President JD Vance openly bullied Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a White House meeting. Trump has unilaterally renamed a mountain and a body of water without any explanation or approval process. He has weaponized tariffs and irked longtime allies. He has threatened news organizations who have published things he doesn’t like.

This list goes on, and we are only in the fourth month of his second term.

We see this at the state level with Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton all resorting to strong-arm tactics for political gain. Paxton, in a fit of revenge, campaigned heavily against everyone who voted against him in his impeachment trial, even though he won. Abbott recently threatened Texas A&M President Mark Welsh with his job because a club on campus wanted to attend what he considered to be a DEI conference.

The point is, with such open and widespread acceptance of bullying behavior, how can we expect to contain and eliminate it? Protests give voice to the problem, but real action is needed. As long as bullies remain unchecked, the behavior will never stop.